LOL… not funny

This morning, I stopped at the local gas station to grab my morning coffee… As I walked past this display, this sign caught my eye… for obvious reasons.

That word, the word that has been in my vocabulary so often for the last few years. The word that has tried to define me, the word that I have struggled to understand, the word that I’ve been scared to accept.

‘ADDICTING’ – addict, addiction, and all of it’s other forms.

And here is was, attached to a rack of donuts, jokingly advising caution to those who may ‘dare’ to consume.

At first I walked past, not thinking too much of it, but as I filled my cup with coffee, I continued to think more about it.

I’m a marketer by trade, so I tend to think of things from the marketers perspective. So here I am, imagining a room of donut executives trying to figure out the best way to drive donut sales. Then Jim, from the back of the room, says: ‘what about a warning sign that the donuts are so good that they can be addicting?’. The room goes silent as the idea sinks in… then the head executive shouts out ‘Brilliant Jim! Let’s go with it! And the campaign is born.

Then I think, is it possible that nobody in this room has dealt with addiction? Whether it’s alcohol, drugs, food, etc, addiction is not pretty, it tears families apart, it ruins lives, it kills people. It’s nothing you want, it’s nothing that you advertise.

Think if there was this sign in the liquor department. Warning, ADDICTIVE! Causes loss of employment, divorce, incarceration. It would not be good for business.